Krista Banasiak

Academic, activist, and artist.

A sociologist by trade, Krista finds the socially constructed world to be endlessly fascinating. As a PhD candidate, her research focuses on the areas of embodiment, politics, gender, and dance. She has published academic work in these areas, as well as in the fields of race, Orientalism, and violence in the media.

Krista is fiercely progressive and does her best to design her life around her left-leaning values. When she is not out fighting for social justice, she can be found basking in the lifestyle of a true urbanite: she walks to work in professional wear and runners, plays with her dog (Mr. Bojangles) at local dog parks, enjoys worldly cuisine, and takes advantage of the smorgasbord of art, fitness, spiritual, and cultural opportunities that the beautifully diverse, cosmopolitan city of Toronto has to offer.

They are the clenched jaw, the racing heartbeat and the rapid breathing. They are the discomfort, fear, anxiety, suspicion and disgust. For police, racist feelings are particularly dangerous. In altercations with African Americans, some police to feel a heightened sense of threat, even when no such threat exists.

I learned that my experience was not unique. I wasn't upset because my fella and I had political views that were not 100% aligned. What concerned me was that, in order to have said views, he must be operating by a set of values that differ so fundamentally from mine that they are almost incompatible.